Cradily (QC 1/2)

<p>Cradily is a strong defensive Pokemon in the VGC 2012 metagame due to it's high base defenses and its Dream World ability, Storm Drain. Storm Drain allows Cradily to absorb any single-target Water-type attacks (from both allies and opponents) and raises Cradily's Special Attack when it is triggered. Storm Drain also provides Cradily an immunity to multi-target Water-type attacks such as Surf and Water Spout. Unfortunately, Cradily has rather poor offensive stats, so it must rely on Toxic or its partner to deal damage to opposing Pokemon.</p>

<p>This set allows Cradily to withstand multiple attacks while damaging the opponent with Toxic. As Toxic does not affect Poison or Steel-type Pokemon, Cradily must have another way of dealing with those types of Pokemon. Unfortunately, Cradily cannot legally obtain both Recover and Giga Drain when it has the Storm Drain ability, so Cradily must use Grass Knot instead of Giga Drain if you choose to have Recover. Hidden Power Rock is another option, although due to Cradily's weak offensive stats it will not deal much damage, even when it is super-effective. Leftovers are used to give Cradily more sustainability, or it can use a Chople Berry to help it survive one Fighting-type attack.<p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>As stated before, Cradily's main form of damage is Toxic, which does not affect Poison or Steel-type Pokemon. As such, Pokemon that can deal effectively with those kinds of Pokemon make good teammates for Cradily. Some good examples include Garchomp and Landorus. One of the few types of attacks that can hit Cradily hard are Fighting-type attacks, so Pokemon that resist Fighting and/or have the Intimidate ability are useful teammates as well. Flying-type Pokemon also resist Bug, another weakness of Cradilys, so Gyarados and Salamence are particuarly strong teammates for Cradily. When using Gyarados or other Water-type Pokmeon, however, you should be aware that any single-target Water-type attack that you use will be redirected to Cradily and not deal any damage to your opponent.</p>

[Other Options]

<p>Cradily does not have a vast movepool, but it has a few other reasonable options. Cradily learns both Gastro Acid and Worry Seed, if you want to nullify either an opponents or your partners ability. Pain Split and Rest are options for healing instead of Recover, but Recover is more reliable than Pain Split and can be spammed without much drawback unlike Rest. Stockpile increases Cradily's defenses, but takes up a valuable moveslot over something that would help it deal with threats to itself and its teammate. Ingrain gives Cradily another form of recovering health, but is much too slow to be consistently effective in double battles. Cradily has the ability to run a physical set due to sharing the same base stat in both Attack and Special Attack. However the only good physical moves that it has access to with Storm Drain are Rock Slide and Earthquake.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

<p>Pokemon that are immune to Toxic and can deal significant damage to Cradily are strong counters to it, such as Metagross and Toxicroak. Hitmontop, Terrakion, and other strong Fighting-Type Pokemon are not immune to Toxic, but can OHKO or 2HKO Cradily with Close Combat before they take significant damage from the poison. Nidoking does not fear Cradily's attacks, but is slow to kill Cradily itself, so it is more of a check to Cradily than a pure counter. Pokemon with the Magic Guard ability such as Reuniclus or Pokemon that desire to be inflicted with negative statuses, like those with the Guts ability, are also effective against Cradily.</p>

If the Zapdos has substitute to block status, sure, but otherwise cradily just uses toxic and laughs as zapdos' attacks bounce off of it. I already mentioned stockpile, and earth power is a lot better than sludge bomb. Sludge bomb doesn't hit anything you can't already deal with.

you could probably mention cradily's ability to go physical and run rock slide and earthquake. this obviously doesn't benefit much from storm drain but two pretty solid spread moves can't be too bad. probably just mention it in OO since it doesn't really merit it's own set IMO

Would Energy Ball be better than Grass Knot in enough instances to get it mentioned? Politoed, Vaporeon, and others are quite light. GK is superior against Rock-types, but one of Cradily's best roles is to combat Rain.

Would Energy Ball be better than Grass Knot in enough instances to get it mentioned? Politoed, Vaporeon, and others are quite light. GK is superior against Rock-types, but one of Cradily's best roles is to combat Rain.

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Energy Ball isn't really mentioned because Giga Drain is only slightly weaker but has a vastly superior secondary effect. So unless you really badly want that extra 5 Base Power, Giga Drain is the better option.

you could probably mention cradily's ability to go physical and run rock slide and earthquake. this obviously doesn't benefit much from storm drain but two pretty solid spread moves can't be too bad. probably just mention it in OO since it doesn't really merit it's own set IMO